Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (19 page)

“Light . . .”

“You promised,
mon amour.
”

“Yes, Light. I stay with Paul.” Her worried eyes roamed over his face.

Light cupped her cheeks with his hands and placed a soft kiss on her lips before he turned away to slide his tomahawk in his belt and loop the bow and quiver of arrows over his shoulder. Leaving his rifle with Paul, he trotted into the woods.

Running cautiously, Light made his way through the tall gloomy forest. His ears were alert for the faintest sound, his eyes searching for the slightest movement. The solitude of the forest closed around him and he felt its familiar soothing influence. He paused often, stepping off the path to turn his head slowly, listening first in one direction and then in another, striving to catch and identify any alien sound.

As the gloom deepened and nighttime approached, he concentrated solely on his mission, dismissing all else from his mind, especially the distracting thoughts of Eli Nielson’s interest in his wife and Maggie’s interest in him.

Before long Light could hear the sound of distant voices and knew that he was now opposite the island where the keelboat had been tied up for the night. Inching slowly toward the river, careful to make no sudden moves that might frighten the waterfowl, Light found a safe spot behind a rock and crouched there, hidden from the river pirate should he be scanning the shore with a spyglass.

Across the fast water that rushed to reach the Mississippi and on to the sea, a campfire burned brightly on the island. It glowed against the darkening sky and gleamed ever so faintly on the water. Several men moved around the fire.

Light scanned the whole area for several minutes. The campfire was large enough to be seen up and down the river and across. From the camp came a man’s laughter and the muffled screech of a woman. The men from the keelboat were clearly enjoying the evening. There could be only one reason for the huge campfire and the sounds of raucous merriment—to draw MacMillan’s attention and convince him that the keelboat crew had settled for the night.

Light moved back into the forest, slowly at first, then rapidly when he reached an animal path leading away from the water. The rivermen, not wanting to risk getting lost among the dense growth, would follow a path, Light reasoned. When Vega let his raiding crew of cutthroats off downriver, they probably would have gone inland and stumbled onto the north trail MacMillan spoke about.

A half-mile back from the river Light found what he was searching for. Bending low so he could see in the dim light, he discovered the print of a heavy boot.

The forest now was cloaked in semi-darkness. Head up, Light moved like a shadow among the trees. Knowing the rivermen were ahead, between him and the homestead, he stopped often to listen. He was reasonably sure they would not attack until the dead of night; they would hide themselves and wait.

Light lifted his nose, sniffed the air, and caught a faint whiff of wood smoke. After a few more steps, he heard the low murmur of voices. He moved slowly from tree to tree until he came to a dense thicket. Dropping to his hands and knees, he parted the bushes ever so gently and silently crept forward behind the cover of brush.

Four men squatted beneath the branches of a large tree. A small fire burned brightly, the smoke scattering in the branches overhead. In front of the men was something that resembled a small animal. It squatted, too, so low its rump touched the ground. Long buckskin-clad arms were wrapped around its head as it tried to protect itself. One of the men prodded the small creature with a stick and it jumped sideways. Light saw that it was tethered to a tree by a leather thong tied about one of its legs. Another man tormented it with the tip of a long stiletto, making it jump this way and that.

“Vat ve do vith it?” The voice was Kruger’s.

“Keep it. Folks’d pay to see it.”

“Keel it.” The man who spoke had a heavy mustache and a Spanish accent.

“It’s mine. I ain’t killin’ it yet.”

“I hooked it out of the tree with a fish line. I got some say.”

“Ya hooked it but I catched it when it’d run off.”

The two men continued to bicker until the Spaniard became impatient.

“Hush your caterwaulin’. Señor de la Vega didn’t send us here to catch little beasties.”

“How’er ya goin’ t’ get it t’ the boat, ya dumb ass?” The man who spoke wore a knit cap.

“Are ya goin’ to carry it when we go to get the gal?” the man who hooked it out of the tree asked.

“I’ll truss it up an’ come back fer it.”

“Cain’t it talk?”

“Don’t guess so. Ain’t made no sound.”

“Vega’ll split yore gullet if ya keep us from gettin’ that gal.”

“I ain’t goin’ to keep ya from doin’ what the dandy wants, Rico. I wager he’ll want this thin’.” He prodded the creature with the stick again. “He’ll be wantin’ to show it off down at Natchez.” The man’s laugh was as dry as a corn shuck. “He jist might dress it all up like a little dandy, put a jewel collar on it, an’ lead it ’round.”

“Sh . . . eet!” Rico spat. “He’ll keel it. We be havin’ our hands full a totin’ the woman without a messin’ with this here thin’.”

“If she be anythin’ like the German said, I’ll tote her clear back to Natchez.”

“Ya vait. Ya see. She be like a picture. I tote ’er,” Kruger said firmly. “Brings up yore pecker just lookin’ at ’er.”

“Reckon that don’t take much. Brought yores up lookin’ at the slut.” The man in the cap pointed a finger at Kruger’s crotch and the men snickered.

“Ya was randy as a billy goat,” Rico said to Kruger. “Ya used her four times one after the other. Ya rocked the boat so hard we thought we’d hit a swell.”

“An’ the hole he put it in was big as a water bucket.” Rico made a circle of his arms.

The men laughed. Kruger snarled, but kept quiet.

After a brief silence, Rico again urged the man with the stiletto to kill the cowering creature.

“I ain’t killin’ it.”

“If ya vant to keep it from runnin’,” Kruger said, “ya better cut the cords in its feet.”

All eyes turned to the big German.

“What ya talkin’ ’bout?”

“The cords in back vat holds its feet up.” Kruger ran his finger behind his ankle. “Cut ’em. It cain’t run—feet jist flops.”

“That’s a idey.”

“Looky! It knows what ya said. It’s shakin’ like a dog pissin’ peach seeds.”

Light had heard enough. An intense hatred for the rivermen welled up in him. Men like these had raped and killed his young wife, his child, his mother.

The small deformed creature must be no other than MacMillan’s friend, Zee. If Light waited, they would cripple the little man even more.

Light analyzed the situation. He had two knives, the bow and the tomahawk. To succeed against four men, his attack must be swift and deadly. The man with the stiletto was the one to take out first. Rivermen were slow, clumsy fighters, more at home in a barroom brawl than in the forest. If Light struck fast, before they realized he was alone, he could get three. The other one would break and run, or stand and fight. Light was confident he could hold his own with any man on a one-to-one basis.

Having made the decision, Light pulled the knife from his boot and slipped it into his belt, adjusted the scabbard that lay on his thigh so that he could reach it easily, fitted an arrow into the bow, stood, and moved out of the brush. The men were too busy talking to hear the scratching sound made by the stiff brush rubbing against his buckskins.

The arrow zinged and went through the neck of the man with the stiletto. He made a gurgling sound and fell back. The others, stupefied by the sudden happening, paused, giving Light time to sink his knife into the chest of the Spaniard. Two men turned to run. One fell like a pole-axed steer when Light’s flying tomahawk split his skull. The fourth man kept going. Light could hear him crashing through the brush like a wounded buffalo.

The entire encounter had taken less than a minute. Knife in hand, Light sprang forward to retrieve his tomahawk. He pulled his other knife from the chest of the Spaniard, who thrashed on the ground. With a quick flick of his wrist, and without the slightest hesitation, he brought the bloody blade across the man’s throat.

After a glance at the man he had killed with the arrow, he turned his attention to the creature cowering with its arms over its head. Light sliced through the thong that tethered it to the tree.

“Come. We must leave here.”

An unblinking eye peered up at him.

“Sharp Knife.”

The words were guttural, as if they came from deep inside the man. The face that turned toward Light was covered with a dense brown beard. The hair on his head was thick and long. Only the nose, the eyes, and the forehead were visible. The large head, without a neck, seemed to sit on shoulders too broad to belong with the rest of the small body.

“Can you walk?” Light asked.

“Not far.”

Light squatted down and looped his bow and the quiver of arrows over Zee’s shoulder.

“Climb on my back. We must go.”

Thin bowed legs wrapped around Light’s slender body, and heavy muscular hands clamped his shoulders. When he stood, Light discovered that the man weighed less than Maggie did. As he clasped the dwarf’s legs, his hand encountered wetness, and Zee grunted in pain.

“You hurt bad?” Light asked.

“Not bad.”

As they traveled swiftly up the animal path toward MacMillan’s, Light’s mind replayed the scene. Kruger was the one who had got away. Would he return to the keelboat in defeat? If Vega were the kind of man MacMillan said he was, he would not welcome the messenger who brought bad news.

It was possible that when Kruger had described Maggie to Vega, he had also told him about her spending the nights with her husband on bedrolls separated from the others. Probably the men Light had attacked had been sent to jump him and steal Maggie. Vega would not have been so foolish as to send just four men to attack a fortified homestead. Light reasoned that the pirate boat had come close enough to this side of the river for the men to wade ashore and was to meet them well below the homestead after they had completed their mission.

Occasionally, Light heard a small grunt of pain from the small man who rode his back. As they approached MacMillan’s place, Many Spots appeared on the path ahead. He looked at Light and Zee and, after giving the call of the nightbird, turned and led the way to the homestead.

*  *  *

Eli hated his weakness and was careful to rise slowly to his feet and not to bend over lest he become dizzy. It was a serious blow to his pride to have Aee MacMillan doing work that he was unable to attempt because he was weak from the fever. Now he sat on a bench behind the cabin cleaning the guns Kruger had thought to render useless by dropping them over the side into the river before taking off in the canoe. When Many Spots had reported seeing the action, MacMillan had had the guns brought up out of the muddy water.

Eli watched Aee work alongside her father, Caleb and Paul to do what they could to protect their home. She filled the water barrels Caleb had brought from the barn in case the cabin should be fired and she cut and pulled all brush and flowers back from the cabin walls. Eli found himself gazing at her rounded bottom in the duck britches as she bent to pick up anything that would carry fire to the cabin.

Since their bickering exchange earlier, Aee had ignored him. When her father told her to pass out bread and meat for a midday meal, she gave Eli’s portion to Paul to take to him. Somehow this irritated Eli. He might have been harsh with her, but she hadn’t been a bit shy about giving it back. She had no business sticking her nose into his affairs.

Aee was capable; there was no doubting that. No task seemed to be too hard for her to tackle. She kept her Kentucky rifle close by, taking it with her as she moved from task to task.

“How fast can you reload?” Eli asked as she passed him, carrying the long Kentucky rifle, its length of four inches over five feet equaling her height.

“Fast as ya can, I wager.”

“Twelve seconds?”

“Ten.”

He gave a derisive snort that he knew would rile her. It did.

“I suppose a smart-mouth, know-it-all like ya can do it in eight.”

“Around there. How do you know you can do it in ten? You carry a clock?”

“I count ‘donkey carts’ an’ can come within a half a second of the best time clock ya ever saw.”

“Donkey carts?” He snorted again.

“It’s what I said. Are yore ears stopped up?”

“I heard you,” Eli said irritably. “I don’t see what ‘donkey carts’ has got to do with how fast you can load that rifle.”

“Donkey carts, donkey carts, donkey carts. Three seconds, ya dumb Swede.”

Eli’s laugh was low and rumbling. “We’ll count your way and have us a little wager when this is over. I can beat you whether you count donkey carts or donkey wagons.”

“When this is over, I’m hopin’ ya take yore high-’n’-mighty self back downriver to a town where ya’ll find plenty a married woman t’ put yore cow-eyes on. Ya ain’t got the gumption t’ find yore own woman.”

Aee walked calmly away, leaving Eli sputtering. As soon as she was out of sight around the cabin, she stopped, stomped her foot and uttered a swear word she had heard her pa use on occasion. The dang-blasted polecat made her
so
mad! He had turned down the invite to eat at their table, but when he needed doctoring, he had come fast enough.